Chapter 504: Soul Contract and Demon Disposition

But honestly, after that whole round of healing—

Rod immediately felt the throbbing pain across his body ease up considerably.

This battle had been a rare overload in recent times; now that he relaxed, weariness hit him at once.

He closed his eyes, intending to rest a while.

Yet in this past nearly a year, when had he ever slept at night without a girl by his side?

Without a fragrant, soft, squishy body to hold, Rod couldn't sleep—nothing felt right no matter how he lay.

"How come I'm more and more like a sex demon who can't do without women?"

So be it if that's what he resembled.

It's all that 【Second Heart】's doing, after all.

Thinking this—

Rod simply called Tally over through the 【Far-Speech Chain】 to keep him company while he slept.

Almost the instant he finished speaking—

The treehouse door creaked open with a *squeak*.

Outside, the sky had gone pitch-black; in the faint glow of the plants, Tally's pretty figure stood.

"That fast?"

"Nope, I was hiding in the shadows by the door the whole time, so I wouldn't get chased off by that elf."

She forced a smile as she walked to the bedside.

Obediently, she pulled up a chair and sat to one side.

Rod said, puzzled: "That's not like you. At a time like this, shouldn't you be taking advantage of me being tied up and can't move, getting handsy?"

The spider silk Watching Yuna had laid wasn't all that strong, but there was a detection spell on it—the moment anything happened, she'd notice.

That girl was too on edge; Rod couldn't be bothered to fuss with her.

"No way, Tally isn't the kind of person who can't read the room."

Tally smiled, bent down, and kissed Rod on the cheek.

Then she buried her face in his neck.

Rod thought she was about to act cute; just as he was about to speak, he felt a damp touch against his neck.

"You're crying?"

"No—Tally's just—just drooling!"

Though she denied it, the sob in her voice gave her away.

Rod laughed:

"What's there to cry about? It's not that serious an injury. Besides, I've had my heart pierced right in front of you before, and you weren't this upset then. Oh right, you even said you wanted to taste what I was like after I died."

"It's different. Back then, if you died I just thought it'd be a shame—after all, I'd be losing such delicious essence. But it's different now. Watching you get hurt during the day, with barely an inch of skin on you that wasn't damaged, I felt awful. The moment I thought you might die, I wanted to go with you."

"That pure-hearted, Tally? The shame of all succubi."

"Shame then. Succubi aren't made of stone—we can like people too. My grandmother killed herself by refusing to feed on essence after her troll husband died; I've definitely got the same bloodline."

"…You being this serious, I'm not quite used to it."

Tally lifted her head, already back in her true succubus form.

On her cute, bewitching face, she was crying an absolute river.

"You have to promise me—absolutely die after me. Tally doesn't want to end up like my aunt, who cut off the thing of the person she liked and soaked it in preservative fluid, only for some mischievous succubus to steal it and grind it into powder to sell."

Rod was amused by her.

He affectionately kissed the demon horn on her forehead.

"Absolutely. You're my personal toilet forever, and I'm your food pantry forever, deal?"

"Then swear it—say you'll only ever love me."

"I swear, I swear, I'll always love Tally."

Tally frowned: "Master, you're skirting the issue—you didn't say only love Tally."

"Can't be helped. Your master's heart is vast—there's more than one heart in there, so it's inevitable that a few more people live inside."

"I don't care, I don't care! Tally was so worried, just coax me!"

"Fine, fine, fine. I'll only ever love Tally, one, deal?"

Tally had still been pouting, face scrunched up.

The moment those words left his mouth, she suddenly flashed her classic devilish smirk.

She *snapped* her fingers, and a soul contract formed of pale-blue spirit-light materialized in midair.

The content on it was, in bold letters: "Ranger Rod swears to forever love only the succubus Tally."

The next moment—

Rod clearly felt a wisp of soul force within him being forcibly drawn out and poured into the soul contract floating in the air.

And Tally herself was the same.

The soul contract was stamped and finalized on the spot!

Wait—can a demon's soul contract really force a deal like this?

"…"

"Eheheh, ehehehehe~~~ finally took the bait~~~"

Tally wiped away her tears in one swipe, the smugness on her face beyond words.

She kicked away the chair she'd just been sitting in with a swagger, plopped down on the edge of the bed, and her pink-nailed fingers slid from Rod's face down to his chest, then further down.

Then she blinked her pink-glowing eyes, and in a victor's pose, pinched Rod's utterly speechless cheeks and kissed him deeply.

She had always been the one to take the initiative, but before it had always been that welcoming, submissive kind of initiative.

This time it was aggressive, brimming with control and wild abandon, prying open his teeth, frantically searching and plundering everything.

After quite a while, she finally pulled away, utterly reluctant to part.

She wiped her sexy lips, which were covered in saliva.

"Didn't expect that, my master? The offense and defense have switched~~ You'll always belong to me alone! I'm going to lock you in a little dark room and tattoo every succubus mark that says 'only me' all over your body, and you have to feed me ten meals a day!"

"."

She straddled over, pressed close to Rod's ear, greedily kissing and breathing.

"Master master master master~~~"

"What kind of stamp-collecting plan, what kind of interspecies girls, harmony in the forest? Paradise party? I don't care about any of it, master will always be Tally's~~ Tally wants master to only ever register me alone~~"

Rod licked the saliva remaining on his lips.

As always, carrying the sweetness of honey and the spiritual quality of enchantment.

"So, all your worrying from earlier was fake?"

"How could it be fake, Tally is very willing to live and die together with master! But well, now that master belongs to Tally forever~~ naturally we won't need to face these dangers~~"

She was overjoyed.

Gazing at Rod's eyes with infatuation, as if holding some rare treasure,

Then she nuzzled about all over while kissing every inch of his face.

"Cute master, you really thought I had absolutely no thoughts of resisting the Nu Yi Zhou? In this nearly a year's time? This is a 【Soul Contract】, I, Tally, secretly researched for several whole months before I refined it to this degree. I've specifically looked into it—even the highest-grade enslavement spells currently in existence can be affected."

"Are you sure?"

"Hehe~ tough talk, that's the kind of master I like, hard everywhere~~ A master who only ever loves me wouldn't use the Yong Nu Yi Zhou to forcibly control Tally~~"

At that last sentence.

She even directly used the power within the Soul Contract.

Once those words were spoken.

Rod indeed discovered an unnatural surge of love welling up in his heart; looking at the smug-faced Tally before him, he felt her beauty was breathtakingly divine, with pink bubbles popping out all around her.

But this unnatural power was quickly suppressed by the power of the Nu Yi Zhou.

The Nu Yi Zhou inherently possessed the power to prevent the enslaved from turning the tables.

Rod smiled: "Tally, release the Soul Contract."

The curse marks on the back of his hand emitted a pink glow.

Correspondingly, the Nu Yi Zhou mark below Tally's navel, resembling a blooming womb, did the same, its light blazing brightly, shining right through the thin clothing.

Tally was stunned for quite a while.

Unable to control herself, she summoned the Soul Contract once more, and then came a crisp crack.

The spirituality composing the Soul Contract dissolved into a pile of fragments; the two streams of soul power instantly separated, returning respectively to the two of them.

"So? Tally?"

The succubus girl stared dumbfounded at all of this.

The next moment.

The smugness instantly vanished from her face, reverting to an ingratiating, fawning smile.

She hurriedly pressed close, kissing him nonstop.

mumamuma, and kissing extremely loudly at that.

"I hate it~~ Tally was just joking with master~~"

Rod sneered: "Starting today, two meals a day changes to one meal a day, and unless I agree, you can no longer stay overnight in the ranger cabin."

Creatures with demon bloodlines—being ill-disciplined was simply their nature.

Rod actually didn't blame her all that much, but not blaming didn't mean he couldn't teach her a little lesson.

The tree spirit Vivian, the spider-turned-elf Watching Yuna, and the half-deer-girl Miss Xiao Ke all had relatively soft personalities, so naturally they could be pampered.

But with Tally and the banshee Kris, one had to take a hard line.

"Ah?!!!"

Tally was thoroughly panicked.

Cold sweat broke out on her forehead, her feet stamping the floor anxiously.

Pressing against Rod's face, she desperately spouted pleas for mercy and acts of coquettishness.

She anxiously stripped off her clothes, enlarging her chest.

"Look, master, look! It's the meat master likes! Aiya! Don't be like this, one meal a day will really starve a succubus to death! Master—"

Rod remained unmoved, telling her to leave.

Tally was already so anxious and regretful she could die; how would she dare defy him.

"Tally will be right outside the door, waiting in the shadows outside the door, master. The moment you want to hold something, you absolutely must call Tally, you absolutely must! It's fine even if you don't hold me, Tally can just lie there without moving, I can do anything, master! You absolutely must call me!"

She could only look back every three steps, leaving the treehouse with great reluctance.

Still pulling a long face and saying some humble words all the while.

Rod, feeling the provocation still wasn't enough, called in the tree spirit Vivian, who had been pacing outside since earlier.

Vivian was a girl who trusted Rod unconditionally.

After hearing from his own lips that the injuries weren't that serious, she was completely at ease, never once considering the possibility that Rod might be comforting her with a lie.

Fortunately, Watching Yuna's spider silk hadn't been bound too tightly.

Rod didn't need to move either, a rare occasion where Vivian clumsily handled the entire process.

Only, during periods when the 【Lust Ke Yin】 wasn't open, Vivian's stamina was rather limited; after one or two times she couldn't take any more.

Finally, she burrowed into the blankets, wrapped her arms around Rod's arm, and drifted off to sleep.

Rod, on the other hand.

While feeling this, he also sensed Tally, who had been secretly watching from a tree outside, crushing leaf after leaf between her fingers.

Honestly, it had its own peculiar charm.

The next morning.

The halfling Lily came to visit.

Her personality was more like a boy's, which made her a little different from the other girls.

Seeing that Rod was fine, her first reaction was envy and regret.

"Soloing a dragon and forcing it to retreat? You beat me to it, Rod — I'd been wanting to try that for ages too!"

(End of chapter)